Dyson Hot pictures and hands-on

Electric fan heaters are two a dozen, cheap as chips, and pretty much resigned to the shelves of DIY shops around the globe. They are an "in case of emergency" or "it’s too bloody cold" purchase.

Not so, says Sir James Dyson. Dyson and his engineers have used the same technology used in the company’s fans launched in 2010, and made them spew out hot air instead of cold (you can still get cold air, but more on that in a mo).

Called the Dyson Hot (get it?) we’ve been testing and reviewing the new heater at Pocket-lint towers to see whether it can heat our office, and whether it’s worth the £270 price tag.

Let’s get the important bit out of the way first, the price. Yep you read that right; it’s £270 for a heater.

While Dyson will try and justify the reasons for that King’s ransom the real reason is that you are paying for something from Dyson, and that means it’s beautifully designed, beautifully over-engineered, and something you’ll want to show your not so beautiful friends rather than hide.

If you think of a £20 heater as a toaster with a fan attached, the Dyson Hot is a supersonic jet engine.

The crux of the Dyson Hot, put simply, is a motor adapted from its vacuum cleaner range that instead of sucking air pushes it through a small hole that, through some more trickery, pushes out a gust of air into the room.

Combine that with heating stones hidden within the design, that can’t get dusty or overly hot, and you start to see some of Dyson’s reasons for creating the Hot in the first place.

With ten air levels it’s fairly quiet even on full-blast and there is a thermostat that will control the temperature up to 37 degrees Celsius. Once the room gets to the desired heat the fan switches off. That’s not that special - all heaters do that.

There is also a cold mode for the summer, however it’s not as effective as the company’s dedicated Dyson fan already on the market.

As with a standard fan there is a swivel mode to spread the air, and therefore heat, and you can angle the Hot up or down to get your head or your feet.

Everything can be controlled via a remote control that can be magnetically attached to the top of the fan when not in use. The remote control looks funky - not one of those cheap Far East off-the-shelf models, and it’s ideal if the fan is on the other side of the room (you lazy bugger).

Put simply, the Dyson Hot will be the best heater you’ve ever owned. It doesn’t smell, it’s easy to control, and it made our office toasty warm quickly.

But then for £270, roughly 200 quid more expensive than anything else on the market, you would bloody hope so, and that’s going to be the biggest rub here. Like the iPad this is an emotional luxury product. You could buy a cheaper heater for a fraction of the price that does the job just as well.

If cost is in any way an issue then go for something cheaper, but then you knew that would be the case.